Laura Urstein Movies
Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello not only starred in the delightfully "retro" Back to the Beach, but also served as executive producers. Appropriately set 25 years after such drive-in faves as Beach Blanket Bingo, the film finds Frankie and Annette as husband and wife, living far from the surf 'n' sand in Ohio. Heading to California to visit their daughter Lori Loughlin, Frankie and Annette are appalled to learn that she has been keeping time with punker Tommy Hinkley. In time-honored fashion, our hero and heroine set about to make the beach safe for funlovers everywhere by driving out Hinkley's unsavory pals. Along the way, Frankie nearly bollixes up his marriage by dallying with Connie Stevens-one of several pop-culture icons appearing in Back to the Beach, including Don Adams, Bob Denver, Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Dick Dale & the Del-Tones , Stevie Ray Vaughan, and even Pee-wee Herman! Back to the Beach is fun for a while, but its six-person writing team can't figure out a logical way to wind it all up. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, (more)
In what can only be described as a dramatic change of pace, Robert Altman directed this raunchy teen comedy based on the antics of two characters featured in a series of stories published in the National Lampoon. Oliver Cromwell Ogilvie (Daniel Jenkins), aka O.C., and his buddy Mark Stiggs (Neil Barry), are a pair of misfit teenagers whose greatest joy in life is making those around them miserable. O.C.'s ancient grandfather (Ray Walston) has just had his insurance cancelled, and when he discovers that suburbanite salesman Randall Schwabb (Paul Dooley) is responsible, O.C. and Stiggs swing into a summer-long campaign to get revenge on Schwabb and his family. While it received some of the most brutally negative reviews of Altman's career, O.C. and Stiggs is worth a quick look for its cast, which includes fellow outcast auteurs Dennis Hopper and Melvin Van Peebles, comics Louis Nye and Jane Curtain, the one-time glamour girl of the Clifford Irving scandal Nina Van Pallandt, and Thomas Hal Phillips, reprising his role as Hal Phillip Walker from Nashville. World music superstars King Sunny Ade and his African Beats appear and provide the musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Jenkins, Neil Barry, (more)
Best remembered for containing the film debut of phenomenally popular comedian of the early '90s, Jim Carrey, Once Bitten is a horror comedy that chronicles the attempts of a bloodthirsty female vampire living in modern day Los Angeles to find the three male virgins she needs every year to stay alive and young-looking. If she cannot do it by Halloween, she will surely die. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lauren Hutton, Jim Carrey, (more)
